Review: Africa Safari, Kenya, Maasai Mara, Hot Air Balloon Ride

August 2018: We had a fantastic time with this travel agency! In a small group of three young women traveling alone, I wanted to arrange a comfortable, safe, and memorable experience for us; our travel planners delivered! I had a few ideas for locations and experiences we wanted to visit while in Kenya, and our travel planner responded with a great itinerary and adjusted it according to my (many) requests and questions. He continued to be available for questions throughout the lead-up to our trip, and met us in Nairobi at both the beginning and end of our trip to greet us in person.

The accommodations and food were all very good - tented camps are such a fun experience. I had some other website's itineraries for comparison in the planning stages, and our travel planner made it clear that the lodges he planned for us were of higher quality as well as smaller and more intimate. We enjoyed all of them; Ololo Lodge in Samburu and Serena Sweetwaters were our favorites. I think we certainly got above-average value for what we paid.

We intentionally built a busy itinerary (a lot of driving to cover a lot of parks), and it went very smoothly. Our private guide and driver for the duration of the trip was fantastic. You could tell he had many years of experience and absolutely knew his way around the entire country around all of the parks and reserves, and was very knowledgeable about all of the animals. We saw tons of wildlife from the moment we arrived; while it seemed we had some good luck it was also clear that our guide kept putting us in the right place at the right time.

Our guide was also always checking in with us about how we enjoyed the accommodations, food, and schedule and kept us informed about what would be coming up next in terms of travel time and what we would be seeing. Driving from park to park throughout the trip he also gave us information about the people who lived in different areas of the country and the most common industries - I appreciated getting to know Kenya beyond just the wildlife.